Commentary – Page 130

5/100 Technology That Empowers Me

Let me start by saying that I’m not a gadgeteer. I don’t rush out for the latest and greatest. That said, apart from Mac computers I have had my fair share of palmtops and phones over the last decade. Nine gadgets in 10 years isn’t bad. I’ve only ever bought one gaming console, a Nintendo … Continue reading “5/100 Technology That Empowers Me”

Nine gadgets in 10 years isn’t bad. I’ve only ever bought one gaming console, a Nintendo Wii, which I bought last Christmas and haven’t played much (it’s more for the kids) and other than that I have no “spare” computers. I’ve resisted electronic photo albums, I don’t have a massive HD TV, I do have a DVD recorder (at me mums), I don’t have a Gameboy, PSP, DS or any other handheld devoted to games, I’ve never owned a WindowsCE/PocketPC/Windows Mobile device though at one point I had real gadget-lust for a Casio model. I do have an iPod Video 60 GB which stores the kids movies and my music (which means I don’t need to break out the DVDs when the kids want to watch something). Every old Mac has gone to a new home so it’s only a few other smaller, more personal, gadgets that remain.

Newton MessagePad 120 – given away
Newton MessagePad 2000 – can’t quite bear to part with it
Palm Vx – lying somewhere about the house
Ericsson T39m – traded in…for…
Sony-Ericsson T68i – traded in…for…
Motorola RAZR V3 – in my room, as a spare phone
Sony-Ericsson K800i – spare phone again, just in case
Nokia N800 – sitting in the house, abandoned…
iPod touch – with a new master
iPhone – toy of choice

I guess it depends on how you define empowerment.

Empowerment

# To equip or supply with an ability; enable: “Computers … empower students to become intellectual explorers” (Edward B. Fiske).

For the most part, the phones never changed the way I worked. The only devices which have seriously changed the way I did things were the Newton MessagePad 2000 and the iPhone.

The MessagePad was the first device that made me leave my laptop at home. When travelling I’d have it on the plane, keyboard placed behind the screen, typing away. I’d download email over the modem before dinner at the hotel, eat dinner and reply to email and then when I returned to my room, upload my replies to the mailserver. It worked well. It had enough utility to mean I stopped bringing a heavy Dell laptop bag everywhere. When I got ethernet and a VT100 terminal emulator on it, it became indispensible for my work. I could connect to the routers and switches in the network using either a serial cable or over ethernet. The battery life lasted days rather than minutes (my DELL had a battery life of about 90 minutes) which meant it just stayed with me everywhere. Of course it was massive which meant I had to keep it in my hand, inside a large jacket pocket (and this was before fatigues-style cargo pants were fashionable). It changed my lifestyle. I felt connected. But it got left behind as my job became less “footwork” and more “deskwork” and the keyboard was no match for the Powerbook that graced my desk and powered a 21 inch monitor. People still wax about the Newton and take the jokes about it in a good-natured way. No-one who really used it found it funny – it was just essential and we’re reminded of it every time we empty the trash in Mac OS X or delete a message on the iPhone.

The iPhone has done much the same. Heavy laptop and bag doesn’t often leave the house. It’s still used in the evening because it has apps I need (iWork, Mail for the accounts I don’t carry with me, XCode) and a massive screen. But day to day I carry iPhone with me because it means when I get home I have 10-20 emails to clear down rather than 200-300. Again I feel connected but this time it’s the real thing. The technology here makes Star Trek look positively dated. The only issue is battery life. I get a full day of heavy usage out of it but I’d really like a good bit more than that. It’s not much different to my crappy, blocky, slow K800i but the difference being that I’m actively using the device all day. It’s checking my email every 15 minutes, dragging down updates all day, letting me view my new house, searching out WiFi hotspots continuously and dazzling me with the brightness of the screen. I’ve yet to completely run out but this device is working constantly for me. Web pages load faster than on my allegedly 3G K800i and the whole device is just a lot more fun.

Other than that – technology that empowers me?

WordPress – accept no substitutes.
Mac OS X – working with Windows every day makes me appreciate my Mac all the more.
Cocoa – based entirely on what I learned and achieved last night with NSMutableArray and NSTableView.
RSS – because it brings the web back to 1995 in terms of formatting and delivers it to your doorstep. Content-enriched!

There’s more. Digital photography so I can keep photos of my kids with me everywhere. Instant Messenger applications which help me work, collaborate, ask questions, help friends and otherwise be part of a rich social network. Text-Messaging (SMS) because it’s the norm for communication – it’s like RSS – a content rich form of communication with really low overheads. And I’d add social networking because it’s how I met her-indoors. And I’m really grateful for that.

I can’t wait to see what technology empowers my kids. They’ll take so much for granted and it’s getting to the point where they will need to have their own computer, complete with iSight, just to maintain their own social network. I would like to think that our children would grow up educated and informed and wouldn’t be stupid and arrogant enough to believe they can get away with things that are illegal or just wrong.

We can marvel at the iPhone but I marvelled at the Newton and the comparison there is 10 years of technology. Our iPhones now will look as bulky and ridiculous as the Newton does now by the time my kids are in their teens.

Human Rights Day: 10th December

Human Rights Day is celebrated annually across the world on 10 December. The date was chosen to honour the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first global enunciation of human rights. The commemoration was established in 1950, when the General Assembly invited … Continue reading “Human Rights Day: 10th December”

Human Rights Day is celebrated annually across the world on 10 December.

The date was chosen to honour the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first global enunciation of human rights. The commemoration was established in 1950, when the General Assembly invited all states and interested organisations to celebrate the day as they saw fit.

Licensing Mac OS X…

There’s not a lot of sense coming out of Steven Berling’s Disruptive Technology blog. Yes, it’s ZDNet. Bear with me. The main points seem to be with the facts that Mac OS X has been “hacked” so it runs on vanilla PCs. And the iPhone has also been hacked months before the advent of the … Continue reading “Licensing Mac OS X…”

There’s not a lot of sense coming out of Steven Berling’s Disruptive Technology blog. Yes, it’s ZDNet. Bear with me.

The main points seem to be with the facts that Mac OS X has been “hacked” so it runs on vanilla PCs. And the iPhone has also been hacked months before the advent of the SDK.

Berlind thinks this is going to force Apple into licensing Mac OS X for third party hardware.

I had an animated gif of tumbleweed here but it was kinda annoying

Steven – what on earth are you talking about? I could understand it if Apple’s sales were flagging or if they needed to open up to a new marketplace, maybe to get some developer interest by supporting commodity bargain-basement hardware. But Apple isn’t flagging, it’s been ages since anyone described them as beleaguered (now they use that to describe Nortel, Microsoft, Dell, Gateway).

Apple is doing well in their current model and if they’re doing well why would they want to change? They have a hot selling phone product, they’re selling more Macs than they ever have and they have the attention of motivated hackers dedicated to making the platform better.

So this is going to force them to open the platform?

Berlind discusses this as a uniquely Apple problem and he’s half right. It’s uniquely Apple but it’s not really a problem. Apple is not dedicating hordes of engineers to combat this any more than there were hordes of engineers “hiding” the music on an iPod. If they were wasting significant resource then Berlind might have a point here but there’s no evidence that any of the Firmware updates for iPhone were designed to stop hacking. Plus they’ve not been vehement in trying to stop Mac OS X hacking either. It’s not as if we have Macintosh Genuine Advantage to worry about.

Kindle and an unlikely competitor

This article on Forbes asserts that Kindle already has competitors: The ability to grab free books online points to the deviceâ€™s real competition: not paper books but Internet-friendly laptops, tablet computers and smart phones. The amount of content available online is growing fast, and devices for accessing the Net are getting better and cheaper quickly. … Continue reading “Kindle and an unlikely competitor”

This article on Forbes asserts that Kindle already has competitors:

The ability to grab free books online points to the deviceâ€™s real competition: not paper books but Internet-friendly laptops, tablet computers and smart phones. The amount of content available online is growing fast, and devices for accessing the Net are getting better and cheaper quickly. One such device is already here. Itâ€™s called the iPhone.

Another post on Counter Notions claims that the big issue will be the DRM content:

iPod users have had an easy way to populate their devices, without having to repurchase most of what they have already paid for or illegally downloaded.

Kindle users, however, will have to purchase or repurchase all the content on their reader. Whereas it was possible to pay $399 for an iPod and enjoy all the music you wanted legally or illegally without any additional expense, not so with Kindle.

For my purposes, iPhone will likely serve me well. It’s already replacing my laptop for most of the things I use the laptop for (casual browsing, checking email) leaving the laptop to be used for document editing, instant messenger and detailed web searches. The screen is 40% smaller (which is a lot) but the device is only half the weight. Battery life may be an issue where the Kindle wins out.

Will Apple see the need to respond? Will Google assist them with their online content much like they gave them access to Maps?

Unqualified Reservations talks Google Android.

From Five Problems with Google Android: The quality of the user experience on the iPhone makes a major difference to Apple’s bottom line. The quality of the Android experience has only a slight connection to Google’s. Sure, everyone on the project would like it to succeed. It’s not about the users. It’s about the advertising. … Continue reading “Unqualified Reservations talks Google Android.”

From Five Problems with Google Android:

The quality of the user experience on the iPhone makes a major difference to Apple’s bottom line. The quality of the Android experience has only a slight connection to Google’s. Sure, everyone on the project would like it to succeed.

It’s not about the users. It’s about the advertising.

The rest of the article describes some of the issues facing customers and developers of Android. The fact it’s a plain-jane implementation of an OS. That the development environments are Java and Javascript. That it breaks no new ground.

A very good read.

4/100 A Community I Love

While there are communities around everything, there are some that I love. I made some good friends and met my fiancee on an online community but I don’t go there any more. Some communities have a way of tiring. They’re best when you take breaks from them. I’ve never really fitted in with some communities. … Continue reading “4/100 A Community I Love”

While there are communities around everything, there are some that I love.

I made some good friends and met my fiancee on an online community but I don’t go there any more. Some communities have a way of tiring. They’re best when you take breaks from them.

I’ve never really fitted in with some communities. The RPG community for example always seemed a little strange and alien and, as a result, I preferred to just blog on my lonesome rather than try to fit in with their arcane rules and preferences.`RPG.net, for example, is extremely bound by their little groups of mini-Hitlers. Anything you say that contains sarcasm or opinion is going to be vetted and you quickly find yourself labelled as “passive aggressive”. It’s a crapshoot however – like a mexican standoff where one or other person will get labelled first. As a result, I pretty much hate it there.

The Mac community is different however. Again I have some ownership over the area I spend my time in and that’s comfortable. What’s better is that there’s a very vibrant community in this little corner of the world and we do our best to moderate it in terms of keeping us legal (ie, no selling software illegally). To extend that, the friends I’ve made through owning Mac-Sys have created a community there. I’ve met, because of Mac-Sys, some savvy yet amiable businesspersons and been lucky enough to keep their friendship. I’ve also met some complete goits and I’m maintaining a list.

OSX-Nutters is a community I enjoy a lot when the Yanks aren’t whining about their own politics (which of course is the best thing to do rather than using their Constitutional rights to bear arms in the event of a corrupt government). The group started when a group of people from OmniGroup’s Mac OS X Talk mailing list needed somewhere to vent off-topic as well as keeping on-topic. Some of the humour and one-liners are just inspired.

The community I love, however, is my group of family and friends. You can see most of my friends on my FaceBook page and my family fill out the rest of it. That’s my community.

Magic 8-ball says: Outlook not so good

That’s a pretty brief review of Outlook 2003 when connected to an Exchange Server. When my IMAP server isn’t responding, I still have my local data. And it works. And when things change, they sync up nicely. Yesterday I spent the morning restarting Outlook as it kept crashing every time the network connection went down. … Continue reading “Magic 8-ball says: Outlook not so good”

That’s a pretty brief review of Outlook 2003 when connected to an Exchange Server.

When my IMAP server isn’t responding, I still have my local data. And it works. And when things change, they sync up nicely. Yesterday I spent the morning restarting Outlook as it kept crashing every time the network connection went down. Today I have this:

The little exclamation mark shows that I can’t get access to my Exchange Server. This means that at intervals the application freezes up. Considering that my calendar is part of this application as is my mail and most of my to-do list, I find myself pretty much unable to be 100% effective.

On the other hand, using a more decoupled service like IMAP with subscribed ICS feeds (a la Google Calendar) I’d still be able to work. At the moment I can just sit and look at the wait cursor and the little exclamation mark. Most of my work is, to be honest, in message passing and making sure people are doing things. As such, my reminders lists, calendars, follow-ups and email are crucial. When I can’t access the server I can’t even search my email. (and yes, I know I could change some of this, if I had access in my profile/policy to change things).

This is why I’m keen on decentralised outsourced services. If you’re not an IT company then why have a server on site. Why tie yourself down like that. Use decentralised services so if your broadband goes down you can pop down to any WiFi hotspot and use theirs. If your hosted email service goes down, you’ve still got access to other services and plenty of opportunity to change to a provider that won’t go down. This is why I use Pair Networks – pretty unrivalled in terms of reliability.

I loathe Windows and Outlook.

Amazon Kindle: eBooks done right?

I’m interested in seeing what Amazon has come up with, as scooped by Newsweek. We’ll see a lot more information tomorrow as the NDAs clear. It’s a paperback-sized eBook reader with a 167dpi screen (just slightly sharper than the iPhone and iPod touch), with a always-on internet connection and 30 hours of battery life. It … Continue reading “Amazon Kindle: eBooks done right?”

I’m interested in seeing what Amazon has come up with, as scooped by Newsweek. We’ll see a lot more information tomorrow as the NDAs clear.

It’s a paperback-sized eBook reader with a 167dpi screen (just slightly sharper than the iPhone and iPod touch), with a always-on internet connection and 30 hours of battery life.

It might be good. It might not.

[UPDATE: It looks like ass. Screen seems sharp enough but they’ve wrapped it in the skin of an old Apple II. Someone get Jeff Bezos over to Cupertino. Stat!]

Microsoft reviews the iPhone: “a lousy iPod”

Is it a qualification or essential criteria to be an idiot if you work in the higher echelons of Microsoft? From the NYTimes, J. Allard, chief of Microsoft’s competing Zune unit whines about the iPhone: Itâ€™s a lousy iPod. You canâ€™t skip a track without looking at it. You canâ€™t go running with the thing. … Continue reading “Microsoft reviews the iPhone: “a lousy iPod””

Is it a qualification or essential criteria to be an idiot if you work in the higher echelons of Microsoft?

From the NYTimes, J. Allard, chief of Microsoft’s competing Zune unit whines about the iPhone:

Itâ€™s a lousy iPod. You canâ€™t skip a track without looking at it. You canâ€™t go running with the thing. It is the first consumer product that has done browsing [on a cellphone] extremely well.

Actually J, if you double-click the little headphone switch on the iPhone, it forwards one track. You can do this with one hand. And no eyes.

I’d heard the one about not running with scissors but….can’t run with the iPhone?

Microsoft brings out two music players by themselves and they think they can comment? Apple has FIVE. Shuffle, Nano, Classic, Touch, iPhone. You’d have to be Golgafringian to not find one that fits your specific niche.

Wireless carriers kept Microsoft from making good phone software.

Er, right. Who stopped Microsoft from making good desktop software?

The fact is that there was nothing to copy. Microsoft did well with a GUI eventually by copying Apple. They build Windows mobile by copying themselves. Of course it was going to be a disaster. Don’t believe me? What do you get if you put a turd in a photocopier?

This is a plain cop-out.

We didnâ€™t create the Zune because we were dying to get into the hardware business and take inventory risk. We felt we had to do it.

Because you’d tried killing the iPod with the “PlaysForSure” brand and that didn’t work. So you made a handheld that wasn’t compatible with “PlaysForSure” and screwed over your old partners.

See. That’s what happens when you base your lifeblood on Redmond. They screwed Creative, Napster, Yahoo, Real and dozens of other “partners” who bought the party line. Did they honestly think it would play out any differently? When Microsoft enters your market, best thing to do is change markets.

I think it’s funny that they’re not denying the possibility of entering the phone market with more than just software. Wanna bet?

Make hay while the sun shines, guys.

Microsoft has still declined to release the Zune outside the US. That’s because there’s no way anyone outside the US would actually buy it.

Windows was incredible. We got to create most of the magic and take none of the financial risk.

Are we meant to ADMIRE you for this? Going back to the earlier statement of why you couldn’t make good phone software? Who was stopping you from making Windows good? Was it simply that you didn’t have to because there were a million idiots who’d buy it anyway?

Playing all of you for fools.

Remember this is J Allard. Don’t know him?

One of these pictures was taken before he got to work on the cool stuff. Wanna bet they used Windows Live Search for “image consultant”.

Entitlement cos you’re a blogger?

The always entertaining John Welch rips the Scobleizer a new one when Robert Scoble, media darling, has a hissy fit because an update didn’t work out the way he thought it would. Just how out of touch do you have to be to start acting like you have the right to special treatment. What level … Continue reading “Entitlement cos you’re a blogger?”

The always entertaining John Welch rips the Scobleizer a new one when Robert Scoble, media darling, has a hissy fit because an update didn’t work out the way he thought it would.

Just how out of touch do you have to be to start acting like you have the right to special treatment. What level of entitlement do you have to possess to think this way? Make no mistake, that’s what this is: the pouting of the biggest, most spoiled entitlement queen in the “blogosphere”. This is what happens when you start thinking of yourself as better than everyone else. This great swollen ego is what happens when you start believing the sycophants who tell you that your shit really doesn’t stink, and that anyone telling you different is just a “hater”.

Of course, Scoble’s comments field is filled with Windows guys shouting about how he’s finally validated their choice in Windows. What? You mean that before the rant you were unsure and insecure about your lifestyle choices and needed that kind of positive validation? Wow. Some people need to work on their self-image a lot. I wonder did it hurt to realise that Scoble seems to have just been impatient and the system sorted itself out? (Something that was left to the depths of the comments rather than adding an [UPDATE] to the main text.

I like John’s writing a lot. And spotted him on FaceBook though I’d never add anyone without actually having spoken to them in some real sense.

What’s worse about this stink is that Scoble follows up with an anecdote about how Mac-savvy tech people refused to go on record saying there were problems with their Macs. This, he points out, is because we’re all brainwashed by Apple. I’ve been on TV and radio (and dead tree matter) a few times now and every time I consider my options.

Robert. Your post was whining and self-serving. You moaned about something breaking and then added quietly in the depths of your comments that it started working again. He ALSO says he expects this of his Windows machine. What? You’re lowering your standards because it’s an ex-employer? Does he still get paid by them because that, to me, is worse shilling than the work he did when he worked there. Anyone remember Mira? Scoble said it was the best. I think it shifted about 12 boxes.

In his followup, however, he accuses Steven Levy and Walt Mossberg of being Apple shills. Is this the privilege of being a blogger? He’s seriously telling us that he is morally better than senior writers at the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek?

I’m exasperating every time I read more of this “I’m Robert Scoble and you must pH34R me” garbage.

In his latest fit of pique he’s publishing twitter updates from anyone who had an issue with an upgrade. I’ve said before, upgrades tickle existing issues. I do take some issue with one that says “Killed my powerbook too. I had to erase & install.”

No, you didn’t.

There’s an astounding amount of free ( the real free by the way ) community support for your Mac. Nearly a decade ago, I started NiMUG because there was no company that seemed sustainable in the Northern Ireland marketplace. My main interest was trying to stabilise the market, give local Mac users somewhere to go that wasn’t filled with bluffers. I had my own issues with SX3 and EOS systems and their support of Mac users which is why I left Nortel in the first place. A detour via Macinni for six months and Mac-Sys was started. I think I’ve ben fair to NiMUG in this respect by trying to fix problems which are easy via the NiMUG discussion forum and letting people make up their own minds about where to take their repairs. Sure, SX3 (now Northgate) and EOS are now competitors of my company but I honestly feel competition is good and on the face of it, the recent news of an Apple Store in Belfast is going to hurt Mac-Sys more than it would either of the other two, yet still we welcome it.

The beauty about being an A-lister is that Scoble only had to ask for help, rather than whining for special treatment in order to inundated with free offers of support. Imagine being the guy that fixed an A-listers laptop? I’m sure there’s a hundred guys in the Bay area willing to strut their stuff like that. And if he’d gone to ANY Mac user group he’d also have gotten more help than he could cope with without being patronised.

I’m not an A-list blogger. To be sure I’m not even a Z-lister. I don’t have any fame (and fewer readers). I don’t expect anything I’ve not earned, through services bartered. No-one rolls out the red carpet for me.

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